


Dying Angels

by shootingstarcipher



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Aged-Up Characters, Angst, Dark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Maybe some explicit or implied smut, Mention of Stenborough, Romance, Supernatural - Freeform, They're 16 and 17
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-23 04:52:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12499176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shootingstarcipher/pseuds/shootingstarcipher
Summary: Richie is sure Eddie Kaspbrak is an angel sent from Heaven with the sole purpose of ruining his life, and certain events during a trip to the Overlook Hotel begin to strengthen his suspicions.





	Dying Angels

He kept his dark eyes focused on the frosty ground below, his mouth shut and his hands grappled for the inhaler he never left the house without. He didn’t know it, but he was being watched – constantly, for Richie’s gaze never left his face. Richie thought he was mad for still wearing shorts in such cold weather, but Eddie never had seemed to give a damn about what he thought. Richie smiled at that realisation before immediately considering that perhaps it was a bad thing, because perhaps he cared a little too much about what Eddie Kaspbrak thought of him.

Regardless, it was far too cold for him to be wandering around in shorts that barely covered the top half of this thighs and while it may have been perfectly cute and innocent a few years ago, now he was beginning to realise that the comments a lot of the other students were making about his friend and the way he chose to dress were far more disturbing. He was used to being bullied – all seven of them were – but this was different; this was disgusting. And it wasn’t just the shorts that they were talking about. Sometimes he heard them mention his tight shirts as well, and more than once Richie had heard someone make a passing comment about how little clothing his friend tended to wear. In reality, it wasn’t that Eddie was showing off; he just barely seemed to feel the cold and it had been that way for the last four years.

Richie, on the other hand, was almost freezing in spite of his warm jacket, jeans and long-sleeved shirt. And still, as he caught a glimpse of another student glaring at his friend when they stepped onto the coach and sat down side by side, he took of his jacket without a moment’s thought and draped it across Eddie’s body like a blanket, simultaneously ignoring the shivers that rippled through his own body in response. Eddie seemed confused but thanked him anyway before sinking into his cushioned seat and closing his eyes, preparing to sleep for the entire five-hour journey.

Richie didn’t blame him. The sky outside the window was dark and stormy and the handful of rays of sunlight that did manage to seep through the low-hanging clouds barely illuminated the outside world at all. In the air, snowflakes were threatening to fall and while he knew Eddie would at least appreciate their individuality and beauty, he hoped to God it wouldn’t get any colder. 

As he contemplated the snow and happened to glance down at his friend, who hadn’t quite gone to sleep yet but had fallen into a more comfortable position, his head resting against the taller boy’s shoulder as if he’d confused it for a pillow, the similarities between Eddie Kaspbrak and the snowflakes he hoped would stay confined to the clouds became apparent. Obvious grace and fragility aside, it would be impossible to find anyone even remotely similar to Eddie Kaspbrak and Richie wouldn’t have had it any other way.

He was pulled out of his trance by a sharp hissing sound originating from across the aisle, where he found Beverly scowling in frustration at her failed attempts at getting his attention. She glanced at Ben, who was sitting beside her, and then pointed back towards Richie and Eddie before the two of them burst out into fits of giggles. Rolling his eyes, Richie turned away from them, gazing out the window with his thoughts consumed by the boy next to him, a secret smile playing upon his lips.

While Bev and Ben clearly seemed to think they knew what was going on in Richie’s head, Richie had spent the last few years praying to God that Eddie had no idea whatsoever. Of course, he always appeared to be oblivious when it came to these matters, but all he could do was hope he wasn’t hiding any real knowledge of his thoughts and feelings. Because even Richie Tozier himself didn’t understand what was going on in his mind – or his heart, for that matter. 

It was as if, every single day without fail, there would be something new that would make his heart flutter ever so slightly or melt him away just a tiny bit more until eventually all that would be left of him would be blood and bone, the rest of him consumed in his own thoughts of Eddie Kaspbrak.

It was as if Eddie had never really been human, but rather some sort of mythological manifestation, the embodiment of elegance but with a hint of something slightly imperfect, something that allowed Richie to connect with him in a way he could never connect with something truly flawless – an angel, perhaps, but one hellbent on ruining his life forever.

He wondered if anyone else had ever thought of him like that; he couldn’t have been the only one, surely, but aside from any lewd remarks people made about his friend, he’d never once heard anyone mention something remotely romantic about him. Of course, while every one of the losers valued him just as much as he did, Richie liked to believe that his love and adoration for him was stronger – that the bond he and Eddie shared was stronger – because if he’d had to choose, he always would have said that Eddie was his favourite out of the rest of them. Hopefully, Eddie would have said the same about him.

The angel stirred in his sleep as the engine of the coach roared, its wheels screeching as it swerved around a corner. Acting purely on instinct, Richie threw out his arm defensively, forming a makeshift seatbelt around his friend until the coach settled back into its monotonous drone and he relaxed, his heartbeat slowing at the knowledge that the angel was safe. He could have been flung from his seat. He could have been propelled down to the front of the coach and hit his head. Being asleep and completely oblivious of the potential danger that could have just occurred, Eddie was incapable of overthinking things as he usually did, but Richie Tozier was not so impaired and took the task on himself, palms sweating as his mind rapidly produced mental images of what could have happened. Even though none of those scenarios had in fact occurred. Even though he knew he was being ridiculous. He just couldn’t stop.

He dared let a sigh of relief escape him eventually, which Stan Uris seemed to overhear because he leaned forwards in his seat and tapped him on the shoulder, attracting his attention. Next to him, Bill sat with his head resting against the window, eyes barely open but he appeared to be engrossed in a book. “Hey, Trashmouth,” Stan whispered to him, keeping his voice hushed so as not to disturb Bill, who looked as if he might have been about to fall asleep. Richie rolled his eyes at the nickname but gave Stan his full attention with a grin plastered on his face anyway. “You’re weirdly quiet,” Stan commented, alerting him to the fact that it was indeed true.

“Eddie’s asleep,” he whispered back, glancing down at the angel’s sleeping face with a soft smile.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Stan grinned (which was a rare sight in itself), before adding, “But I’m glad. Carry on.” He then proceeded to reach over and take the book from Bill’s loose grasp, Bill having by now fallen asleep, and after staring at him for a moment Richie turned back around with a slight scowl on his face, but that scowl soon turned into a knowing smile as he thought of how Stan and Bill had grown exceptionally close over the last few months, and how Stan seemed to feel more connected to him than any of the other losers. It took a lot of strength, but he managed not to mention it to him, realising that Stan might very well return his observation with one of his own.

He looked at his watch roughly every seven and a half minutes for the next hour before the urge to speak and have attention thrown in his direction became unbearable and he balled up a sheet of paper from the notebook he carried and threw it across the aisle, successfully hitting Beverly on the head. He did it once more before she retaliated, their playful fight only ending when she threatened to aim for Eddie (her aim had always been incredible, and it had only gotten better since their last rock fight, so Richie wasn’t willing to take any chances).

A part of him would have actually preferred for Eddie to have been woken up, but another knew that Eddie needed his sleep and besides, he looked so peaceful it would have practically killed him to disturb him, so for the time being that part of him must have been winning.

But when his breathing started to quiver halfway through the journey Richie decided he had no choice but to wake him up. He delved into his bag in search of his inhaler and, quickly finding it, held it to the younger boy’s mouth and urging him to breath into it, simultaneously shaking him gently by the shoulders in attempt at waking him up. His eyes flung themselves open just as Mike turned around to find out what was going on, immediately getting out of his seat to aid Richie in calming him down.

Eddie didn’t speak until his breathing had begun to return to normal, his hands starting to grow steady as they wound themselves around his inhaler, and in turn grasping Richie’s hands as well. “It was just…” He paused to take a deep breath, still struggling to breathe even with the help of his inhaler. “A nightmare, I guess.” Mike nodded and went back to his seat. Richie nodded and refused to move, hands still holding the inhaler.

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked quietly, his worry beginning to fade away to become replaced with intrigue. Eddie shook his head without a word, returned his inhaler to his bag, and trained his gaze on the window, the outside world passing in a dark, hazy blur as they drove across miles and miles of snow.

When their destination finally came into sight, Eddie leaned closer to Richie in anticipation and the two of them stared out of the window, eyes focused on the Overlook Hotel. Richie had no idea whether this trip was going to prove to be a good idea on the school’s part or not, but one thing was certain: sharing a room with an angel couldn’t be bad, even if that angel was trying to wreck his life.

They left the coach hand in hand, with the rest of the losers following behind them, and before leaving the comfort of their seats Richie had made sure to tie his jacket around Eddie hips, covering his legs and shielding them from the cold threat of the hastily falling snowflakes until they reached the hotel’s entrance. The way they aimed straight for the earth reminded him of bullets and he automatically hurried Eddie along, protectively slinging an arm around his waist in the process.

After checking in and then being subjected to a fifteen-minute-long lecture regarding appropriate social conduct for the duration of their stay, which essentially meant they did as they were told and in absence of a teacher used their common sense, each of the students were permitted to head to their assigned rooms, which would accommodate two or three students each. Naturally, the teachers all received their own rooms. Richie scoffed at that thought, frustrated by the hypocrisy of adults, but reluctantly admitted to himself that he, at the very least, was glad to be made to share a room knowing that the angel was the one he’d be sharing it with. Others may not have had the same good fortune.

As echoes of the footsteps behind them died away, he and Eddie stepped into the room that would be known as theirs over the next week (until they were collected and returned to Derry in that old, dilapidated coach) and Eddie instantly recoiled in horror, the two of them mentally recounting the reasons they had signed up for the trip.

For Richie – who was the first of the losers’ club to put his name down for it – it was practically a dream trip, the bonus of Eddie and his other friends joining him on it only making it better. While others saw him as idiotic and intellectually subpar, he had always excelled in more creative subjects like English and it was his English teacher who had proposed the trip to the Overlook in the first place, as part of his attempt to ignite a flame of inspiration in his students for their current topic: horror writing. This room was a perfect embodiment of the subject.

For Eddie, whilst the subject of writing was not something he found particularly stimulating (unlike maths and science, which he always did extremely well in), the idea of not seeing his best friend for an entire week was utterly horrendous. For Eddie, his reason was simple. Richie Tozier.

The peeling wallpaper, murky, worn down carpet with its indistinguishable colour, and the way every floorboard seemed to groan despondently as they were stepped on were precisely why the Overlook had been chosen as the perfect place to inspire a group of seventeen young horror writers, some more enthusiastic than others. For several minutes, while Richie claimed the bed closest to the door as his own and splayed out on it, Eddie refused to set foot inside the room, the dust and cobwebs triggering what he would have labelled an asthma attack but what was actually a bout of sudden and severe anxiety. It was only when he saw him breathing into his inhaler that Richie realised it was more serious than a mild distaste for the room’s outdated and depressing décor, and then immediately rushing to his side to calm him down until he was eventually able to coax him into the room.

Sitting hesitantly on the bed by the window, Eddie started to unpack his things whilst Richie ignored the concept of unpacking altogether, only unzipping his bag to grab a sweater (the angel still had his jacket and the room wasn’t much warmer than outside in the rain and snow) as well as a notepad and pencil, which he then used to note down anything and everything even remotely ghoulish or unnerving about the room. Within two minutes he’d filled an entire page with his list, a few of the items including: curtains that blew about in the breeze in spite of the window being closed, the enormous spider behind him on the headboard, and the eerily enchanting angel across the room – the one that looked like he wanted to murder him.

“Do you even know how to take care of a room? You can’t just sit there!” Eddie snarled at him, or at least he tried to, but Richie’s immediate response was to smirk at him for not being able to pull of an angry expression without reminding him of a chihuahua snapping at its owner’s heels.

“You don’t take care of a room, idiot. They take care of themselves. Besides, we’re just here to write.” Richie leaned back on his bed as he spoke, resting his notebook on his chest and locking eyes with the spider behind him. “I guess we could take care of this little guy though,” he joked, knowing full well how Eddie felt about spiders. He didn’t need to see the look on his face to know he was horrified, or to know that he’d flung himself across the room in a heartbeat and was standing with his back to the door, about to leave through it.

Richie sighed and sat up. They had to leave for dinner anyway, so they could continue their argument later (he had no intention of ever unpacking his bag and had already decided that if it bothered Eddie so much, he could do it himself) and so he headed towards the door, gaze fixated on the angel as he strode towards him. After a long, painfully quiet moment, Eddie finally asked what he was staring at, to which he replied, “Nothing – you just have snowflakes in your hair” before pushing past him and heading out into the corridor, Eddie closing the door after them.


End file.
